We have launched an appeal to focus on the long term reconstruction effort.

We primarily work in the reconstruction phase of post disaster situations and will be focused on transitional and permanent housing and community structures. We do not do emergency shelter. We are partnering with Yele Haiti, AIDG and other local group by supplying them pro bono construction and design professionals, setting up community housing resource centers and support in the design and building of earthquake resistant structures.

Flawed Building Likely a Big Element: Engineers and architects who have worked in or visited Haiti say that substandard design, inadequate materials and shoddy construction practices likely contributed to the collapse of many buildings in the earthquake that struck Tuesday. (NY Times)

Here We Go Again: Toxic Chinese Toys... And BPA... and Even Housedust:

A group of the nation's leading environmental scientists are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to stay all new mountaintop mining permits. In the January 8 edition of the journal Science, they argue that peer-reviewed research unequivocally documents irreversible environmental impacts from this form of mining which also exposes local residents to a higher risk of serious health problems.

The authors --- hydrologists, ecologists and engineers --- are internationally recognized scientists, including several members of the National Academy of Sciences. They argue that the U.S. should take a global leadership role on the issue, as surface mining in many developing countries is expected to grow extensively in the next decade.

"The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop mining is strong and irrefutable," says lead author Dr. Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park. "Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes."

Science bombshell explodes myth of clean coal: Mountaintop “mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses.”

Murkowski and her lobbyist allies: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is likely to postpone offering an amendment (pdf) next week that would bar the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act; WaPo confirms lobbyists wrote the amendment. (Washington Post)

Selling a City's Soul - for Chicken Scratch: KFC, the fast-food chicken chain owned by a global conglomerate named Yum Brands, is in search of fire hydrants it can use to "mark its territory." In particular, the corporation wants to spray hydrants in various cities with its logo. (Truthout)